The exemplary embodiment relates to communications between an agent and a customer and finds particular application in connection with a system and method for assisting an agent to generate a response to a customer query.
In a customer care environment, agents respond to inquiries from customers and often search for information that may assist the agent in responding to the customer inquiry. The agent may use an in-house solution database but frequently searches are performed online using an Internet search engine to retrieve information.
The communication between clients and the customer care center is often done via chat tools. A standard dialogue may start with the customer (i.e., person that contacts the center) initiating a chat with an agent, describing the problem and asking for a solution. Often, the problem description is not complete at the beginning of the dialogue, so the agent has to interact/chat with the customer in order to further clarify the issue. The agent may manually search the solution database to find a relevant solution, and if none is found, may then manually search the web. This may include selecting part of the dialogue content to be used for the search and copying and pasting the selection into the interface of a search engine, or writing a set of keywords that correspond to the selection and then launching the query. The agent then clicks on one or more of the links found by the search engine and checks to see if the document contains a relevant solution. This often takes place while the agent is trying to maintain the conversation.
While the search can yield useful results, the time taken can have a negative impact on the interaction, even though it may take less than a minute or a few seconds to complete. While conducting the search, the agent's attention is often not focused on the dialogue. The agent may have to break off from the search to type a response to the customer. Often, the agent may respond with one of a set of stock responses which are intended merely to reassure the customer that the agent is working on the customer's problem and which do not advance the dialogue.
To expedite the search, the agent may simply copy and paste a large chunk of the dialogue. As a result, the search may include terms that are not specific to the customer's query, such as words of greeting or other common words and phrases (e.g., ‘at work’, ‘since last week’, etc.). The agent can remove these extraneous terms but this requires additional time dedicated to the search.
Even a few seconds saved during the interaction of the agent with the customer can have a significant impact, both in terms of the agent's productivity and in the customer's satisfaction, which can impact whether the customer will do business with the company in the future.
There remains a need for a system and method for assisting an agent which automates the search for information that is relevant to the customer's query.